Rave on, Jimmy Carter

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

From 1977 to 1981, Jimmy Carter served as the 39th President of the United States. Click through the gallery to look back at moments from his life and career.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Carter, 6, poses with his sister Gloria in their hometown of Plains, Georgia, in 1931.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Carter graduated from the US Naval Academy on June 5, 1946, after completing the accelerated wartime program.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Carter shovels peanuts in the 1970s. Carter was the son of a peanut farmer, and he took over the family business in 1953 before his political career took off.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Carter gets a haircut during his first year as governor of Georgia. He was inaugurated on January 12, 1971.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

After becoming the Democratic Party's presidential nominee in 1976, Carter raises hands with running mate Walter Mondale at the Democratic National Convention in New York. Standing to Carter's right is his wife, Rosalynn, and their daughter, Amy. Carter ran as a Washington outsider and someone who promised to shake up government.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Carter and US President Gerald Ford debate domestic policy at the Walnut Street Theater in Philadelphia in September 1976. It was the first of three Ford-Carter presidential debates.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Carter embraces his wife after receiving news of his election victory on November 2, 1976. Carter received 297 electoral votes, while Ford received 241.

Carter, second from left, and his brother Billy, left, visit Georgia's St. Simons Island in 1977.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Carter delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in January 1978. "Government cannot solve our problems," he said. Anti-government sentiment at the time was brought on by economic pessimism along with the end of the Vietnam War and the unraveling of the Watergate saga.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Three days before his birthday in 1978, Carter blows out candles on a birthday cake presented to him at a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Carter jogs on the South Lawn of the White House in December 1978.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, right, listens to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on September 6, 1978, at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland. With Carter's help, terms of a peace accord were negotiated at Camp David. A formal treaty was signed in Washington on March 26, 1979, ending 31 years of war between Egypt and Israel. It was one of the highlights of Carter's presidency.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

A blindfolded American hostage is paraded by his captors at the US Embassy in Tehran, Iran, in November 1979. Carter's inability to successfully negotiate the release of the hostages became a major political liability. The hostages were freed on January 20, 1981, the day of Ronald Reagan's inauguration.

Before departing for Georgia following Reagan's inauguration, Carter holds his crying daughter as his wife blows a kiss at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

The Carters wear glittering garlands and a turban given to them by Pakistani tribesmen at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in November 1986. They also received a pair of rams.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Carter addresses a United Nations interfaith service at New York's Trinity Church in September 1991. His speech was entitled "The Present Role of the United Nations in a Changing World."

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

From left, former President George H.W. Bush, President Bill Clinton, Carter and Vice President Al Gore attend the Presidents' Summit for America's Future in Philadelphia in 1997. They helped clean up local neighborhoods as part of the effort to encourage volunteer service.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Clinton presented Carter with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, on August 9, 1999. Carter was recognized for his diplomatic achievements and humanitarian efforts.

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Carter works at a construction site sponsored by the Jimmy Carter Work Project in Asan, South Korea, on August 6, 2001. The Carters have been involved with the nonprofit Habitat for Humanity since 1984.

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Cuban President Fidel Castro calls for time as Carter prepares to throw the first pitch at a baseball game in Havana, Cuba, in May 2002.

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Students at the University of Havana listen to Carter outline his vision for improved relations between the United States and Cuba on May 14, 2002. The speech was broadcast live and uncensored on Cuban state television.

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Carter is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, in December 2002. He was recognized for his many years of public service, and in his acceptance speech he urged others to work for peace.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Carter adjusts his headphones at a news conference in Caracas, Venezuela, in January 2003. He proposed a referendum on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's presidency or an amendment to the constitution as a way to end the political crisis in the South American nation.

Rosalynn Carter smashes a bottle of champagne against the sail of the USS Jimmy Carter during the submarine's christening ceremony in Connecticut on June 5, 2004.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

The Carters wave to the audience at the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Carter checks his notes while observing a polling station in Maputo, Mozambique, in December 2004. Since 1989, the Carter Center has been observing elections around the world to determine their legitimacy. The nonprofit organization was founded by Carter and his wife to advance human rights across the globe.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

In February 2007, Carter speaks to children in Ghana on the seriousness of eradicating guinea worm disease.

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The Carters arrive for President Barack Obama's inauguration in January 2009.

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Carter testifies in May 2009 during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on energy independence and security.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Hamas leader Ismail Haniya speaks in June 2009 during a joint news conference with Carter in Gaza. Carter denounced the deprivations facing Palestinians in Gaza as unique in history, asserting that they are being treated "like animals."

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Carter walks out of the Hall of Remembrance at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem in August 2009. The Elders, an independent council of retired world figures, kicked off a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories in a bid to encourage Middle East peace efforts.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Carter delivers a speech in Seoul, South Korea, after receiving an honorary doctorate degree from Korea University in March 2010. During a four-day visit to South Korea, Carter urged direct talks with North Korea, saying a failure to negotiate nuclear disarmament might lead to a "catastrophic" war.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Carter greets South African leader Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg in May 2010.

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Carter hugs Aijalon Mahli Gomes at Boston's Logan International Airport in August 2010. Carter negotiated Gomes' release after he was held in North Korea for crossing into the country illegally in January 2010.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Carter and other former Presidents, including Clinton and both George Bushes, attend the Points of Light Institute Tribute to Former President George H.W. Bush in March 2011.

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Cuban President Raul Castro greets Carter and his wife at the Revolution Palace in Havana on March 30, 2011. Carter was the first former US President to visit Cuba since the 1959 revolution.

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In April 2011, Carter addresses students at the Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies in Pyongyang, North Korea.

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As part of the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, Carter answers a question during a panel discussion at the University of Illinois in Chicago in April 2012.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

From left, President Obama, Carter, first lady Michelle Obama and Clinton wave from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 2013. It was the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, which is best remembered for Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Carter talks with reporters in Chicago at a signing for his book "A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence and Power" in March 2014. In the book, Carter argues that the abuse and subjugation of women and girls is one of the biggest challenges the world faces.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Carter teaches Sunday School on Easter Sunday 2014 at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia. Carter teaches Sunday School at the church several times a year.

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Carter signs his book "A Full Life: Reflections At Ninety" in Pasadena, California, in July 2015.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Carter talks about his cancer diagnosis during a news conference at the Carter Center in Atlanta in August 2015. Carter announced that his cancer was on four small spots on his brain and that he would immediately begin radiation treatment. In December 2015, Carter announced that he was cancer-free.

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Photos:Jimmy Carter's legacy

Carter delivers a lecture on the eradication of guinea worm disease at the House of Lords in London in February 2016.

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Carter and his wife arrive for the inauguration of Donald Trump in January 2017.

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Carter helps build stairs for a home during a Habitat for Humanity project in Edmonton, Alberta, in July 2017. A couple days later, while working on another house in Canada, Carter became dehydrated and was taken to a hospital as a precaution.

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Story highlights

Brinkley: Jimmy Carter is a fighter and his presidency showed how firmly he stood up for freedom around the world

He says Carter's many supporters around the world are rooting for his recovery from cancer

Douglas Brinkley is CNN's Presidential Historian. This article is adapted from his book, "The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter's Journey to the Nobel Peace Prize." The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.

(CNN)Word that Jimmy Carter has cancer reminded me of something that his White House Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan once said about his boss: He was "indefatigable," able to rebound from adversity as if a gutsy superhero.

"I have always believed that it is a sign of weakness to show emotion, giving in publicly to despair, frustration, or disappointment," Carter wrote in his 1982 memoir "Keeping Faith."

"I try to hide my own feelings to reassure others by emphasizing the positive aspects of the situation and to pray for strength and wisdom. Privately I commit myself to overcoming obstacles or to figuring out a new course of action."

Douglas Brinkley

Carter's never-throw-in-the-towel personality was fomented during his U.S. Navy years (1943 to 1951). The only 20th-century president who had a longer military career than Carter was Dwight Eisenhower. Because Carter refused to bomb Tehran during the Hostage Crisis of 1979--81, his critics painted him as a Cold War weakling. But this is the wrong way to look at his presidency.

Using human rights as this sword, Carter, as president, bolstered America's credibility by lambasting the Soviet bloc countries and other totalitarian nations for crimes against freedom. "I believe historians and political observers alike have failed to appreciate the importance of Jimmy Carter's contribution to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War," former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Robert Gates maintains in his memoir "From the Shadows."

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"He was the first president during the Cold War to challenge publicly and consistently the legitimacy of Soviet rule at home. Carter's human rights policy ... by the testimony of countless Soviet and East European dissidents and future democratic leaders, challenged the moral authority of the Soviet government and gave American sanction and support to those resisting the government."

Unfortunately a mythology has taken root that Carter, as president from 1977--1981, was weak on defense. As National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski has rightly maintained, Carter strengthened and modernized the U.S. military during a very difficult post-Vietnam War period, when the Pentagon was deeply unpopular. Just months after Carter entered the White House, he began badgering our NATO allies to rearm. In fact, he demanded solid commitment from every member to increase their defense budgets by 3% a year.

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When the Soviets started manufacturing SS-20 nuclear missiles, it was Carter who countered by proposing that NATO cruise and Pershing missiles be based in Western Europe. And far from slashing American armed forces in Europe, Carter deployed an additional 35,000 troops to boost the American NATO contingent above 300,000, which more than made up for the cuts the Nixon and Ford administrations had made under détente. Besides modernizing NATO, Carter approved deployment of both nuclear cruise missiles and the Pershing II IRBMs -- intermediate-range nuclear forces -- in Europe.

Carter had no intention of appeasing the Soviets. In fact, his very concentration on human rights was in part intended to weaken the Kremlin. Where Gerald Ford had refused to welcome exiled Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to the White House, Carter embraced political dissidents Vladimir Bukovsky and Andrei Sakharov with open arms.

Perhaps the most profound document on display at the Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta is the February 5, 1977 missive he sent to Sakharov: "Human rights is the central concern of my administration," Carter wrote. "You may rest assured that the American people and our government will continue our firm commitment to promote respect for human rights not only in our country, but also abroad."

This epistle, which the Nobel Prize-winning physicist proudly waved in President Leonid Brezhnev's face, prompted the Soviet leader to pronounce Sakharov an enemy of the state. As Robert Gates noted, "Whether isolated and little-known Soviet dissident or world-famous Soviet scientist, Carter's policy encouraged them to press on."

Furthermore, it was Carter -- not Reagan -- who first capitalized on the human rights provisions of the Helsinki Accords in order to allow movements such as Czechoslovakia's Charter 77, Poland's Solidarity, and the Helsinki Watch groups in East Germany and the Soviet Union to flourish. Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel even avowed that Carter's vigorous human rights stance so undermined the legitimacy and self-confidence of the Warsaw Pact chieftains that dissidents across Eastern Europe regained the hope that carried them on to post-1989 democracy.

Lech Walesa professed that it was Carter's tough December 3, 1980, statement -- which warned the Soviets about the consequences of their military buildup on the Polish border -- that sent a signal that, unlike Czechoslovakia in 1968, the United States would not abandon "anti-Socialist" forces in Poland. And that wasn't all: Carter's human rights policy also created an environment that allowed 118,591 Soviet Jews to emigrate during his presidency, and encouraged Indonesia to release some 30,000 political prisoners from jail.

Under Carter's direct order, the CIA began covertly smuggling into the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe literature about democracy and books like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago." Perhaps even more inspired, Carter had the CIA infiltrate the Soviet Union with thousands of books promoting the heritage of ethnic minorities. All in all, the Carter administration's insistence on human rights saved thousands of lives and put the Soviets in a defensive crouch. And, before long, Soviet-style communism collapsed, thanks, in part, to Carter's brave promotion of human rights.

As the world prays for Carter to become a cancer survivor, we should remember the raw courage behind his standing up to the Soviets.

Even at 90 years old, Carter remains a freedom fighter and a respected leader and a warrior for peace. Two lines from his favorite poet, Dylan Thomas, perfectly capture his unyielding rectitude in recent years in trying to stamp out preventable diseases (like river blindness and Guinea worm in Africa) and in promoting global democracy in the 21st century via the Carter Center: "Do not go gentle into that good night / Old age should burn and rave at the close of day."

Rave on, Jimmy Carter, against cancer -- perhaps the worst scourge of all. The freedom-loving world is on your side.